The Horoscope in Manifestation

by Liz Greene

A psychological approach to transits and progressions

This article is extracted
from a seminar given on 8 June, 1996 at Regents College, London
as part of the Spring Term of the seminar programme of the
Centre for Psychological
Astrology.

The nature of prediction

How do we interpret transits and progressions
from a psychological perspective? I would like to begin by
saying that, although the internal nature of our exploration
should be clear to any astrological student with a psychological
approach, I am not in any way denying the value and long tradition
of predictive work in astrology. But the two are not mutually
exclusive. 'Psychological' does not mean only 'inner'. Too
many of us have had experience of accurate prognostications
of a specific and concrete kind to pretend that the planets
are not related to the outer as well as the inner world, or
that it is impossible to predict certain kinds of events in
certain situations.

Many years ago I gave a seminar for the Wrekin
Trust, which was then transcribed, edited and turned into
a book called The Outer Planets and Their Cycles. In passing,
while examining the birth chart of the Soviet Union, I made
a prediction about its future. It was really a kind of throwaway,
as I did not have much knowledge at the time about the subtleties
of mundane astrology. My rather naive prediction was based
on the fact that Pluto would creep up to conjunct the Soviet
Union's natal Sun in seven years' time. I had observed that
every time a powerful transit hit this natal Sun in Scorpio,
the Soviet leadership changed. In mundane terms, this is a
fairly obvious and simple conclusion, since the Sun in a national
chart reflects, amongst other things, the nation's leadership.

The reason I expected a collapse rather than
yet another typical struggle for the leadership was because
Pluto is rather more all-encompassing than the other outer
planets. It tends to wipe everything clean, and nothing remains
of the original form or structure. There were other transits
- for example, the Uranus-Neptune-Saturn conjunction in the
first decanate of Capricorn, approaching the Soviet Union's
Venus in the 4th house - that suggested that this imminent
collapse was going to be like a marriage breakup. It would
be a disintegration from within rather than from without,
and all the various satellite countries would start asking
for a divorce. This was how I read it at the time, and there
was no indication in 1982 of the events to come. A new leader
was certainly on the cards; but a total collapse was unthinkable.
In the subsequent seven years, therefore, I didn't think about
it. Then everything came to pass as predicted. There are many
situations, both mundane and personal, in which astrologers
can make accurate prognostications.

However, focusing solely on the predictive
side of astrology is like a medical doctor focusing solely
on a bodily symptom, rather than considering the whole individual
and the interrelationship of body and psyche. Over the years,
I have come to believe that a great deal of what we assume
to be fated, in terms of transits and progressions, is not
fate at all - it is our unconscious complexes at work. As
individuals and as a collective, we unwittingly contribute
to, create, or are drawn into situations which enact internal
issues - either because we have been avoiding these issues
in the past, or because they are simply ripe and the kairos,
the right moment, has arrived.

It would be very foolish to imagine that all
life situations are the individual's creation, because many
are not. One cannot say that six million individual Jews had
particular transiting or progressed aspects which meant that
they would be taken away to the concentration camps. It is
sheer lunacy to suggest such a thing, as well as an avoidance
of our unconscious collusion when such acts of brutality occur
on a mass level. There are collective movements and upheavals,
as well as 'natural' disasters such as floods and earthquakes,
which may supersede individual choice, complexes, and will.
There may be other, deeper spiritual factors as well, about
which I am not in any position to comment.

Many people in the astrological world believe
in karma. I am not a disbeliever. But I feel it is a lot more
complicated than what someone once called the 'ding-dong theory'
- one was nice or naughty in one's last life and therefore
one is rewarded or punished in this one. As morality is such
a deeply subjective and relative thing, I find little value
in such simplistic approaches to the realm of the spirit.
But there may well be something that continues through and
beyond a single mortal incarnation, which accrues 'substance'
according to the choices made in each lifetime, and which
acts as a magnet for the kind of experiences we attract. This
may be a factor above and beyond one lifetime's efforts at
consciousness. There may also be factors in the family inheritance
over which we have no control. However unfair it may seem,
we are the inheritors of family conflicts and complexes that
have crystallised over many generations, and these often act
as a kind of fate. If such conflicts have remained largely
unresolved, we may lack the mobility to choose or avoid certain
events, and any individual undoubtedly possesses greater freedom
of choice if there is not a heavy backlog of accrued psychological
inheritance.

Thus there are many factors other than individual
consciousness which determine how transits and progressions
are going to be expressed. Nevertheless,
a great deal of what we assume to be predictable may not be
predictable at all, once individual consciousness has begun
to expand the levels at which we experience reality. For this
reason I believe we need to try to live as though we have
the freedom to work with our transits and progressions on
a psychological level. We may then have room to transform
or alter future events, or deal more creatively with anything
that is our own creation due to the workings of unconscious
complexes. As for those things about which we truly have no
choice, we will find out soon enough, and can hopefully learn
to accept and live with our necessity in a more tranquil spirit.

One of my main objectives in exploring this
theme is to suggest that we may have more freedom than we
think, on levels of which we might not initially be aware.
If we can learn to work with the planetary movements with
more insight and less of a literal, 'Uranus is going over
whatnot and therefore such-and-such will happen' approach,
we might discover what Pico della Mirandola meant when he
said that human beings are co-creators with God. Literal-mindedness
doesn't do us justice as astrologers. It can also be downright
destructive, because there is, of course, such a thing as
a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because our perceptions are invariably
distorted by our individual complexes, we are inclined to
interpret transits and progressions not according to what
they might mean, but according to what our complexes tell
us they will 'do' to us. Even the most orthodox 'traditional'
astrologer is not really able to be objective when it comes
to predicting events. We cannot even be certain what an 'event'
really is, since so much depends on how and when the person
registers what has happened. Our assumptions about the future
are just as heavily coloured by our own psyches as our assumptions
about the present.

A psychological approach to transits and progressions
is more challenging than a literal one, because it involves
taking responsibility for what is symbolised by the configurations
in one's birth chart. It also necessitates learning to work
with traditional predictive techniques on more than one level.
It doesn't mean that there is no value in trying to get a
sense of how a planetary movement is likely to come out on
a material level. It is as foolish to ignore this dimension
of life as it is to ignore the psyche. If one has the progressed
Sun square a 2nd house Neptune while transiting Saturn is
conjuncting that natal Neptune, it may not be a good idea
to go into a business partnership with someone whose background
and credentials one knows little about. The concrete application
of astrological principles can be of great value to us. But
without the background of psychological understanding preceding
any literal interpretation, I think we may, much of the time,
create our own fate, manifest our own predictions, and generate
considerable suffering when it may not be at all necessary
to do so.

Levels of expression

1. Meaning or teleology

Now I would like to examine the different
levels on which transits and progressions are likely to be
expressed. There are three main levels on which planetary
movements seem to operate. Some of you may think of more than
three. But as a general overview, I have found this division
quite useful. The first level is the one which is likely to
be of greatest concern to the spiritually inclined astrologer
- the deeper meaning of a particular transit or progressed
aspect. By 'meaning', I am referring to its teleology - its
ultimate purpose in terms of the evolution of the personality,
the soul, or both. Those of us who have a religious or spiritual
bent assume that the cosmos has some kind of purpose, and
that there is meaning in the experiences which occur in an
individual life. Events therefore have a hidden design, a
teaching function, and if we can grow because of what happens
to us, we are fulfilling some greater spiritual or evolutionary
design.

Whether such a cosmic design really exists
is an arguable issue. However certain we might be about the
objective existence of such a deeper pattern - which is another
way of saying that God, or the gods, exist - none of us is
in a position to prove it. We may, in fact, project a highly
personal perception of meaning onto an utterly arbitrary and
unconnected universe. But even if this were the case, a great
many people experience life as containing an innate meaning
and purpose, and this conviction, whether projection or not,
can be life-sustaining. It is psychologically and spiritually
creative even if it is not 'true' in any scientific sense.

When we view transits and progressions
from this perspective, we ask ourselves, 'What am I meant
to be learning from this conjunction of transiting Saturn
to my Sun? What is this progression of Venus square natal
Pluto meant to be teaching me? What can I discover while transiting
Uranus is opposition my Moon? What is the positive potential
of this progressed Mars sextile Chiron?' This approach is
an extremely important dimension of any transit or progressed
aspect. Although I have used the term 'spiritual', it is as
psychological as an exploration of parental complexes, because
we are considering the planetary movements in terms of the
evolution of the psyche. We might see this view as belonging
to transpersonal or archetypal psychology, rather than reductive
psychology. But it is psychological nevertheless. Without
this perspective we are treating astrology, and ourselves,
as merely mechanical.

Some astrologers focus almost entirely
on this level, and consider other levels too negative or materialistic.
They
will look at transiting Pluto over natal Chiron, or progressed
Venus square Saturn, and they will talk primarily about what
is on offer in terms of growth. Let's say transiting Saturn
is coming up to oppose one's natal Sun in the 5th house. If
we approach this transit from a teleological perspective,
we may talk about a developing sense of who one is as an individual.
Out of this transit one could get a stronger sense of identity,
a clearer sense of purpose, and a realisation of one's creative
talents. The challenges of the material world might hurt,
but they can ultimately result in a deeper commitment to a
particular vocational direction. Any events which occur, however
difficult, are 'meant' to make one more aware of oneself.

The teleological approach on its own
is often sufficient with nice transits and progressions, like
transiting Jupiter trine the Moon, or progressed Sun sextile
Uranus. When we experience harmonious planetary movements,
we tend to 'plug into' a sense of cosmic purpose and goodness,
and such interpretations fit how we feel at the time. The
meaning and the emotional response at the time of the transit
or progressed aspect seem to be in accord. When less attractive
planetary movements come along, one can still interpret them
in terms of potential. Often such an approach can be wonderfully
healing in the midst of turmoil, stress and pain.

We may see a veritable planetary nightmare
coming along, and we need to ask ourselves what potential
for growth might be hidden beneath all the stress. It is very
important that we keep this in mind, and are able to communicate
it. But we may also need to remember that, however profound
and positive the meaning, the individual experiencing such
transits and progressions may not be in any condition to listen
to evolutionary possibilities. For many people, particularly
those who have been accustomed to viewing reality from a purely
material or extroverted perspective, the deeper meaning and
potential of a difficult transit or progressed aspect may
not be accessible until long afterwards. While they are going
through it, they may be aware of, and able to hear about,
nothing except their conflict and pain.

2. Emotional stuff

Transits and progressed aspects also
involve an emotional level of expression. This too is psychological,
but it is more concerned with the individual's responses,
both on the feeling level and in terms of the unconscious
complexes which are being activated. The past as well as the
present is usually involved. Our emotional responses at the
time of a transit or progressed aspect are extremely complicated,
and a lot depends on how much self-understanding we have achieved,
how strong the ego is, what kind of containment we can bring
to the feelings which are activated, and how much we know
about our parental complexes.

Past experiences are almost invariably
activated by any important transit or progression, especially
if a similar transit or progression has occurred in the past,
and we need to consider what sort of memories and associations
we have accrued under successive planetary movements to a
particular natal placement. Also, an experience which may
be ultimately positive and productive in meaning may, by its
very nature, require suffering as part of its process. All
these factors lie on the emotional level, and because of this,
the emotional response to a transit may be wildly different
from its teleology.

There may appear to be absolutely no
relationship between the meaning of a transit or progressed
aspect and how one actually feels and behaves at the time.
The astrologer, not to mention the client, can get extremely
confused by this. I have seen wonderful transits of Jupiter
come along which feel anything but wonderful at the time.
We tend to sit and wait hopefully for Jupiter, thinking, 'Oh,
how splendid, something fantastic is going to come my way
when Jupiter conjuncts my Sun.' Something wonderful may indeed
happen from the teleological perspective, but what happens
in actual life may be an emotional nightmare.

If one is a very earthy person, for example,
with lots of planets in Taurus and a strong Saturn and a powerful
need for structure and stability, and one has been faithfully
married for twenty-three years and has three children, two
cars, a safe job, and a mortgage on a large house, and progressed
Venus arrives on natal Jupiter in the 5th house, what ensues
may be anything but wonderful on the emotional and material
level. We astrologers may know that the opening up of the
heart which such a progression reflects may ultimately be
just what the person needs. But meanwhile, what is he going
to tell his wife? And can he afford to pay the court costs?

Much depends on how one has been living
one's life, and whether one is in touch with all the different
configurations in one's birth chart. It is unlikely that any
of us can claim we are totally in touch with everything within
ourselves, so it is a question of the degree of unconsciousness.
If a person has married early for security or social reasons,
and the potential excesses of a 5th house Jupiter have been
ruthlessly suppressed, such a progressed aspect may unleash
a great deal of conflict and suffering. The person may fall
in love with someone other than his or her spouse, and must
then face the consequences. Sometimes it is the spouse who
acts out the renegade Jupiter. It is not uncommon to see this
kind of apparently vicarious experience in the charts of clients,
or in one's own charts. One sits waiting for Prince or Princess
Charming to arrive when transiting Uranus goes over natal
Venus, and one's partner runs off instead. Why are we so reluctant
to understand how powerfully the unconscious psyche affects
the manner in which a transit or progression is expressed?

Sometimes there may be an experience
of great depression with an apparently happy transit. I have
seen this very often when the so-called Benefics are involved.
Jupiter arrives on one's natal Sun, or progressed Sun conjuncts
Venus, and the astrologer assumes that a time of happiness
and fulfilment has arrived. Instead, the person plunges into
a black hole. Conflicts may be activated by a happy experience,
reflecting deep-rooted feelings of guilt linked with the parents.
Or it may be that Jupiter makes us aware of unlived potentials,
which can exacerbate feelings of failure. If we are so cemented
into a rigid structure that we have cut off all the bridges
to future possibilities, we may ask ourselves, 'What is the
point of life?' Jupiter can be connected with deep depression
because the gap between our potentials and our present situation
may be revealed in a blinding moment of painful truth, and
this gap may make us feel ashamed of how we have been wasting
our lives.

So the emotional response to a transit
or progressed aspect may be very different from its meaning.
We need to be able to communicate with a client who is in
the throes of an emotional state which bears little resemblance
to what we understand as the teleology of the transit or progression.
We may be so full of what a particular planetary movement
means that we forget that the person may not feel that way
at all. He or she may be very frightened by what is happening,
even if on a teleological level it is going to be transformative.
We may know that the end result will be positive, but the
client may not feel it. And if we cannot relate to the immediate
emotional situation of the client, and explore any personal
psychological issues which could help him or her to find a
way through to the deeper meaning, then all our enlightened
interpretations will wind up sounding like a load of waffle.

One level without the other is incomplete.
It is extremely important to understand how people feel under
difficult transits. Many transits are very painful, and it
is stupid and short-sighted to pretend that they are not,
or that one 'ought' to feel optimistic. If somebody with progressed
Venus square natal Chiron is sitting there saying, 'I'm miserable!'
we cannot very well respond by saying, 'Nonsense, you should
be feeling positive and enthusiastic, because this is a time
of healing.' We can certainly talk about healing, but we also
need to empathise with the sense of isolation, inferiority
and unfair treatment which the person is likely to be experiencing,
so that we can make intelligent comments about why he or she
is feeling this way. We may also need to talk about the past,
especially those times when Chiron was activated by other
important transits or progressed aspects. The emotions which
accompany profound inner change are often extremely uncomfortable.

In some ways it is the most complex of
the three levels of expression, because we are confronted
with the mystery of individual consciousness. Emotional
reality is the glue binding the level of meaning with the
level of manifestation, and it is also the area in which we
have some opportunity to exercise individual freedom of choice.
By the time a psychological issue is so solidified that it
must be expressed in concrete form, we can only plan for the
future, but we cannot undo what has been knit into the reality
of the present. This is really the ground which Jung and Hillman
call the soul, and it is the mediator between spirit and matter.

The person with transiting Saturn opposition
natal Sun, who has, in terms of teleology, such a superb opportunity
for a greater sense of personal identity, may be deeply depressed
and insecure. He or she may feel like a failure, and all the
achievements of the past may seem worthless. Parental issues
may rise to the surface, particularly those connected with
the father and the father-complex. The challenges of this
transit may not be perceived as challenges, but as victimisation.
Questions about the basis of personal identity may have to
be raised, and many attitudes and assumptions about life may
need to be cleared away before a healthier world-view can
grow in their place. The relationship with the masculine -
within oneself and with the men in one's life - may have to
undergo a complete re-evaluation. There are a lot of things
that people can feel under the transit of Saturn opposition
the Sun that are not very pleasant, and when people feel bad,
they want to know that the astrologer can recognise their
unhappiness and help them to understand its basis. The more
spiritually inclined astrologer may need some experience of
psychotherapy to work on this level.

3. Materialisation

The third level of transits and progressions
is the level of materialisation. It is in this sphere that
many, although not all, older astrological approaches have
their focus. Working on this level, the astrologer is primarily
concerned with what will happen in the material world under
a particular transit or progressed aspect. This may seem a
simple approach, but it is actually extremely complex. There
are many issues, inner and outer, that may affect whether
a planetary movement will materialise on a concrete level,
and in what way. One important factor is the individual's
complexes, which have a tendency to materialise if they are
highly charged and dissociated from ego-consciousness. If
there is such a thing as karma, that may also be a factor;
and the family inheritance, genetic and psychological, is
also relevant. And we should not neglect the importance of
the environment, especially the prevailing social attitudes
and world-view, because the individual is always circumscribed,
to a greater or lesser extent, by the collective of which
he or she is a part.

There may also be a destiny in every
life - something that the soul or Self may wish to accomplish
in a particular lifetime. In Greek philosophical thought there
were two kinds of fate affecting the individual, erinyes and
daimon. The former might roughly be equated with ancestral
inheritance, and the latter with the soul's destiny or purpose.
And there may be a collective fate as well - entire nations
or peoples may have a specific destiny in terms of human evolution,
and a specific ancestral inheritance. As individuals we are
sometimes caught in movements that are bigger than we are,
because we are part of a larger humanity which is itself attuned
to planetary cycles. Therefore we share in the vicissitudes
of this larger humanity, and may have to cope with the psychological
baggage we inherit from our racial, religious, social and
national background.

These are philosophical questions about
which each of you will have your own individual beliefs and
convictions. I am mentioning them because they may be factors
in the materialisation of transits and progressions. Of all
these areas I have touched on, the only one where we can be
really effective as individuals is the sphere of our unconscious
complexes. Our ability to recognise, contain, work with and
transform these may ultimately affect the collective of which
we are a part. It may even affect our 'karma'. Behind the
prediction of any event there is always an individual or a
group of individuals. In the end we are forced back into our
own gardens to contemplate what is growing there, if we wish
to understand why and what kind of events are likely to happen
to us.

When does an event occur?

There is another important issue about
the materialisation of transits and progressions and the prediction
of events. The moment we consider what is going to 'happen',
we enter the fraught area of what constitutes an event, and
we are in very mysterious terrain. I will give you an example
of how complicated it can be.

Recently I had a second session with
a client who first came to see me several years ago. I had
heard nothing from her in the intervening years. I noticed
that transiting Pluto was now approaching her 4th house Chiron
in 5° Sagittarius. It transpired that, a few years earlier,
her father had died. My client told me that when he died,
it hadn't meant anything to her. It was apparently a non-event.
She had not had a close relationship with him. She believed
that she felt little for him, and therefore when he died it
was as though nothing had happened, because he had never been
there to start with. This is how she put it. We had discussed
her relationship with her father during our first session,
and her perceptions had not changed since then. I am not inclined
to view Chiron's placement as an area of life where the individual
feels nothing. But my client was convinced that this was so,
and that was where the discussion about her father ended.

The reason she came to see me for a second
session was that she had become very upset about her brother-in-law,
who was ill. He had been developing small malignant growths,
and although the doctors kept operating and removing these,
new ones kept growing, and she feared that he would die. What
she couldn't understand was that, although she was not close
to this brother-in-law, the idea of his dying filled her with
blind terror. Contemplating the death of anyone else, including
her husband (she had married since I had last seen her), evoked
no such drastic response.

For some reason the role this brother-in-law
played in her life was far greater than she had thought. She
saw very little of him. They had a friendly relationship,
but she wasn't close to the sister who had married him, nor
had she ever entertained erotic fantasies about him. She couldn't
understand why she was now in a state of extreme anxiety about
the mere idea that this man might leave her life. She called
her state 'an irrational obsession', which indeed it was.
We should also note that, along with transiting Pluto conjunct
Chiron, transiting Neptune was crossing and recrossing her
natal Sun.

Gradually it became apparent that the
real event which underpinned her anxiety was the death of
her father. This may sound strange, because he had already
died, but on the inner level he had not died at all. There
was no grief, no emotional separation, and no sense of loss
at the time of the actual death. Yet the presence of Chiron
in the 4th, combined with a Sun-Jupiter trine, suggested to
me that there were highly ambivalent feelings about this father,
extremely positive as well as extremely painful, which had
been totally suppressed. This lady was in the habit of suppressing
virtually all feeling. Although extremely intelligent, she
had a curious blankness, as though there was no one home.

The real death seemed to be coincident
with transiting Pluto coming up to natal Chiron, four or five
years after the father's physical death. My client's brother-in-law
had fulfilled the role of father for her. His Saturn, at 22°
Cancer, was exactly opposite her natal Sun at 22° Capricorn.
He evidently felt deeply responsible for her, although he
saw little of her, and she responded to his Saturnian qualities
as a daughter might. She took him for granted; he made her
feel safe. He was always there in the background. He was extremely
stable. She knew that if she ever got into any trouble she
could go to him, financially and emotionally. She had never
exercised this option, but she knew he would be there if she
needed him. She had allocated to him unconscious feelings
of a childlike kind which were bound up with her actual father,
with whom she had clearly had a very painful and complicated
relationship that she had been denying for most of her adult
life.

If we were to try to predict the events
suggested by this transit of Pluto over Chiron in the 4th,
we might say, 'She is going to move house, or emigrate. Or
perhaps she will divorce.' Or, if we are a little braver,
we might say, 'Here is the death of a parent, and it may raise
some very painful and confusing feelings.' The death of the
father is certainly a likely expression of this transit, especially
if we take into account the conjunction of transiting Neptune
to the natal Sun. But how can the father die if he is already
dead?

For my client, the event of her father's
death is taking place now. That is her reality, although it
may not be yours or mine. This death and all its painful accompanying
feelings have nothing to do with the flesh-and-blood father
being popped into his coffin. Now, for the first time, my
client is facing the fear and panic and grief which she denied
when the actual parent made his exit. She has focused these
feelings on a man who is not really the person she is feeling
the feelings about. Her brother-in-law is a surrogate, a hook
for her unconscious father-complex. Whether or not the brother-in-law
will die is not made clear by the transit. In a sense it is
not even relevant. It is the possibility of his death which
has invoked such a powerful reaction. We might say that his
possible death is synchronous with the ripening of a father-complex
which is now ready to become conscious.

This kind of dislocation of inner and
outer events upsets our notions of what we define as reality.
An event, in the sense that it reflects a transit or progressed
aspect, may not be quite what we think it is, because the
time when concrete things happen to a person may not be a
true reflection of when they happen inside. Our emotional
recognition of and involvement with the occurrences of our
lives are what make an event real. We remember what has impact
on us, and the impact may not come at the time of the physical
occurrence. The brief example I have given is not uncommon.
The time that things happen is not always the same as the
time that they physically occur. This is why material events
may pass with an inexplicable lack of relevant transits and
progressions, even if we expect something important to show
up in the chart.

As another example, let's consider the
end of a relationship. When does this happen? When the two
people physically part? This is obviously not always the case,
not even when it is death which has caused the separation.
For many people that relationship is still alive and powerful
years after the physical separation, and one partner may still
be angry, grief-stricken, and unable to get over the loss
even though the other partner has long since gone. This is
particularly tragic and poignant when a parent loses a child,
and cannot process the loss. The child's room may be preserved
like a kind of museum, with nothing moved or changed, as though
he or she were expected to return at any moment. This can
also happen with divorcing couples. The ex-partner's photograph
is never removed from the mantlepiece, and no new love is
allowed to sit in the old love's favourite chair.

Often people are quite unconscious of
this, and are then shocked by their own violent reactions
when, sometimes many years later, the ex-wife or ex-husband
remarries. All hell breaks loose, as though the vanished partner
has been put on ice in a secret compartment of the soul. Even
though he or she has gone physically, the beloved presence
has still been there internally, and when the ex-partner makes
a commitment elsewhere, all the grief and pain are experienced
as though the separation has only just happened. In fact it
has only just happened, although it may have happened on the
concrete level years before. And that may be when we see progressed
Venus conjunct Pluto, or transiting Saturn over Venus, or
transiting Uranus opposition the Moon in the 7th house.

When relationships end, they may end
for only one of the two people. Also, relationships sometimes
end long before they actually end. A couple may remain living
together all their lives, but the life left the relationship
two or ten or thirty years before. This also may be reflected
by the relevant transit or progressed aspect, even though
there is no physical event. Movements in the chart may describe
the end of something, but there may be no visible end, no
concrete event. Or the relevant transit or progressed aspect
may describe the end of something long after everyone else
says, 'Oh, it ended years ago.' Endings, like beginnings,
are a highly individual business. Different people take different
lengths of time to process events. Some events mean nothing
to one person, and a great deal to another. Death itself means
different things to different people, and one person may be
full of anger and terror and deny his or her mortal illness
to the very last, while another is peacefully resigned to
death as a rite of passage years before the actual passing.

The perception of an event - its timing,
its significance, and the interpretation we give it - is described
by the synchronous transit or progression, and thus the real
'events' described by planetary movements are those occurring
in the psyche. An external event itself may or may not be
relevant to the individual. If one has a powerful transit
or progressed aspect, an event may have great significance
and can completely overturn one's life; but if the same event
occurs at another time, when there is not such a powerful
concordance of aspects, it is experienced entirely differently
and may not be felt as 'major'. The event itself is not that
important as an objective entity. But what one experiences
internally attaches importance and meaning to the event, according
to the transit or progression coincident with it.

I know this is a difficult thing to grasp,
because our habitual way of interpreting reality is that anything
happening 'out there' is objective. The physical manifestation
may be objective (although that too is open to question),
but the way we perceive it is not. It is very disturbing to
explore the ways in which our perceptions colour what is 'out
there'. And our perceptions are what the horoscope describes,
including the transits and progressions over natal placements.
When transiting Saturn is on the Moon, we are predisposed
to perceive and respond to situations in a certain way, which
is likely to be more realistic, and more negative, than when
transiting Neptune is on the Moon. When transiting Uranus
is on Mercury we perceive truths different from the ones we
perceive when transiting Chiron is on Mercury. When transiting
Jupiter is on Venus, we experience people differently from
when transiting Pluto is on Venus. Is it the people that have
changed, or is it ourselves? And if it is indeed the people,
might our changing perceptions influence the kind of people
we attract, as well as the attitudes they show to us?

If a separation occurs during a transit
of Uranus trine Venus, it will have a completely different
feeling from one which occurs under a transit of Pluto opposition
Venus. In the eyes of others, the event may look the same.
Joe Bloggs leaves his wife and runs off with his eighteen-year-old
secretary. But if Joe's wife has Uranus trine Venus at the
time, she will probably heave a great sigh of relief to be
rid of him and free at last. If she has Pluto opposition Venus,
the most bitter thing about the whole situation is the betrayal.
If progressed Venus opposes Neptune, she may feel victimised.
If transiting Saturn squares Venus, she may be preoccupied
with material survival and a gnawing sense of inferiority
in the face of a humiliating rejection.

We should never underestimate the importance
of the subjective dimension of events. How an event feels,
how it is understood and perceived, and when it really registers
as a reality will be totally different according to the prevailing
astrological 'weather' as well as the natal chart, because
the individual is receiving the event in an individual way.
This complicates our definitions of what constitutes an event.
The level can vary enormously, and so can the timing. And
the event reflected by a particular planetary movement may
or may not be connected with a physical happening.

Things become even more complicated when
we consider the heavy planets. They may hang about forming
particular aspects to the birth chart for two or three years,
or, in the case of Pluto, even longer, moving back and forth
as they make their stations direct and retrograde. A whole
series of apparently unconnected events may occur during the
time of these outer planet transits, and all these events
will be perceived through a lens coloured by the particular
tint of the transit. Thus all the events that occur during
such a period seem to carry a similar feeling or meaning.

If those same events happened at any
other time, they would not be experienced in the same way.
They would seem random. We would not say, 'Ah, there is a
connection here between my father's death two years ago, the
fight I had with my employer last year, and the new love affair
I have just started this month; it is all part of the same
package.' It is the transit or progression which reflects
this sense of concurrence, not the events themselves. We tend,
in the main, to remember periods of our lives, rather than
one specific item after another, and this sense of a period,
a specific time span coloured by certain kinds of happenings,
is deeply subjective and linked with the presiding transits
and progressions of the time. We have to be extremely careful
when we try to define an event, because the more closely we
look, the more subjective it becomes. An examination of aspects
at the time of an individual's death is a vivid example of
this. By this I mean not only the aspects occurring in the
chart of the person who dies, but also those occurring in
the charts of those close to the dead person. We might think
that death is such a terribly specific event, which occurs
at a particular moment, and we can set up a chart for that
precise moment. But no astrologer has successfully come up
with a typical 'death signature' - it looks different in every
chart. And the aspects which are building up, sometimes for
several years, may be as relevant as those occurring at the
precise moment. It is possible that some deaths really occur
on the inner level long before the actual death, and reflect
something within the individual that has 'given up'.

Trying to make sense of the materialisation
of transits and progressions means that we need to try to
keep in mind all three levels of expression, including the
emotional and teleological levels. These latter two have a
direct bearing on the actuality of events. Not only are all
three levels relevant, but it is also wise to remember all
the complexities of each of these levels. Only when we have
got a bigger picture of what is going on can we responsibly
say, 'There is a likelihood that such-and-such will happen.'
Without this rounded picture, we are throwing darts with a
blindfold on. We might get a bulls-eye, but we might also
hit someone in the eye.

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